]]>People on the east coast of the U.S., particularly New Yorkers and New Jerseyans, have a lot more pressing concerns right now than gadget sales or tech companies’ supply chains. However, one big question facing a lot of businesses right now in the northeast is how fast they can get their delivery networks up and stores opened for business in the wake of the natural disaster that took out power for many, and flooded roads, buildings and data centers earlier this week. For Apple, its test comes Friday.

November 2 is the first day that Apple’s new iPad mini and updated iPad go on sale in the U.S. and several other countries. While it will be business as usual in most of the 250 Apple stores in the U.S. and nearly 150 in other countries, that’s not the case in New York City and parts of New Jersey: two NYC stores, the SoHo and West 14th Street locations, are closed due to Superstorm Sandy’s effects, and three stores in New Jersey are also shuttered until further notice, according to Apple’s website.

It’s hard to predict what kind of effect the store closures will have on sales, but it’s at least one new factor that could impact the all-important first-weekend of sales of Apple’s latest device. Apple will often announce new hardware sales figures from the first weekend to reinforce for potential customers that the device is popular and worth buying, and as a signal to Wall Street what kind of quarter the company is in for.

The W. 14th Street Apple Store is closed. Its neighborhood, along with most of Lower Manhattan still has no power.

Most of Apple’s other stores in the region do remain open. But some of its most trafficked retail stores in the world, like the Fifth Avenue “cube” store that’s filled with shoppers 24/7, are in Manhattan. Transportation into and out of the city — whether via car, bus, train, subway, airplane or boat — is severely restricted for locals and tourists due to flooding and power outages. And within the city, much of the public transit system is still offline or overtaxed. So instead of plotting the best time to line up to buy an iPad on the first day it’s available, NYC locals are more likely going to be figuring out the best time to get in line for a bus that will get them somewhere near their workplace.

True, some people will buy an Apple device automatically and can order online. But in this case, being able to check out the iPad mini in person is going to be necessary for a lot of customers. As the owner of a standard-sized iPad, I myself was skeptical of the iPad mini. How could a smaller, cheaper version of what I have be attractive? Then I got to hold one at the press event last week, and I can tell you, picking it up and playing with it definitely helps you make a decision. Most people are going to want to see that screen for themselves.

The other factor — people getting their preordered iPads in the mail — is another challenge Apple is going to have to deal with, and it’s going to affect even more people than store closures. FedEx, which Apple uses, is warning customers that deliveries are indefinitely delayed or just slow for most of the northeast, as BGR noted earlier.

In the long run, this disaster probably won’t have a significant effect on Apple’s overall quarterly sales of the iPad mini and new iPad. Both devices are launching globally and will be rolled out to many cities and towns all over the world where shopping will continue as normal. Plus, we’re in that time of year where a lot of people go gift shopping. So while Sandy was certainly powerful, she didn’t cancel the holidays.

]]>As post-tropical storm Sandy continues to hammer the east coast of the United States, big data companies are coming out of the woodwork to show everyone how smart their tools are in helping predict and prepare for similar situations. Here are a few examples:

Google: Google might be the biggest big data company of them all, and it used everything in its toolbox yesterday to create probably the most comprehensive tool available for tracking Sandy’s progress — its Superstorm Sandy Crisis Map. Not only does it collect, display and layer weather data from a number of sources, but it also includes video feeds from various locations, evacuation routes, emergency centers and traffic conditions (note: embedded map is interactive).

Palantir: Secretive Palo Alto, Calif.-based startup Palantir doesn’t often talk about what it’s up to, but customer Direct Relief issued a press release on Monday explaining how Palantir’s technology helps the agency prepare — and continue to monitor — its efforts to donate medical supplies ahead of storms, including Sandy. Here’s how it explained its efforts heading into yesterday’s landfall:

“Working with analytical and data visualization tools from technology partner, Palantir, Direct Relief is able to to pinpoint clinic partners located in socially vulnerable areas and in flood risk zones near Hurricane Sandy’s path. Palantir’s tools allow Direct Relief to pull together massive amounts of information sources into a common framework to better understand, visualize, plan, and manage for complex emergencies in near real-time.

“… Offers of supplies were sent to more than 300 partners in the path of the storm and along evacuation routes.”

SiSense: SiSense is a business intelligence startup headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel, that boasts one of the fastest in-memory data analysis platforms around. On Monday, the company showed off what its product, called Prism, can do with a little weather data. The resulting interactive dashboard — which the company claims took less than an hour to build and uses open data from Data.gov — won’t help anybody track Sandy’s progress, but could help companies looking to avoid natural disasters find the safest places to locate their companies or critical data center assets.

Datum Companies: A Greenwich, Conn., company called Datum Companies on Friday (we’ll assume the timing isn’t entirely coincidental) launched its flagship catastrophe-prediction platform called Eurus. Designed for customers in the insurance industries, the cloud service uses a variety of advanced statistical methods, as well as machine learning algorithms, to predict the likelihood of and monetary losses associated with natural disasters. Built on the Cassandra NoSQL database, the platform stores and collects billions of data points that it uses to train its predictive models.

Of course, parties interested in turning a profit aren’t the only ones whose data expertise proves effective in the case of natural disasters. We might also start paying more attention to the computer models from meteorology researchers, which proved remarkably accurate in predicting Sandy’s evolution from a coastal hurricane into an inland post-tropical storm. Assuming new, better satellites do actually launch later this decade to power future models, they might combine with next-generation commercial big data products and open data sets to provide some very useful data about how and when disasters will hit, how bad the effects might be, and how best to prepare.

]]>East Coasters are apparently watching a lot of Netflix as they’re trying to wait out Hurricane Sandy. A Netflix spokesperson just sent us the following stat:

“We currently see about 20% more streaming compared to last Monday. A lot of it is coming from the East Coast with New York City, Washington DC, Boston, Philadelphia and Baltimore showing a lot of activity on Netflix. Initially we saw a lot of kids titles being watched, a sign that the kids are staying home from school. We’re glad we can provide people some great entertainment while they’re hunkered down for the storm and hope everyone stays safe.”

Now let’s hope everyone’s electricity stays on so you can finally finish that Arrested Development marathon. Seriously, please stay inside if you are in a non-evacuation zone – and check our list of ways to track the hurricane online if you’re getting bored of Netflix.